Sorry, One More Post About Franzen
Paper Cuts - New York Times -August 31, 2010,
By Jennifer Schuessler

Today is the official publication date of Jonathan Franzen’s novel “Freedom.” Would readers permit me to add one more blog post to the Franzenfrenzy?
Since I’ve already read the novel, I had to satisfy my daily Franzen craving by going back and rereading his great review of Alice Munro’s “Runaway,” which ran on the cover of the Book Review in 2004.

Franzen rarely reviews books, and here he took the rather perverse tack of talking mainly about Munro’s previous collection, lest he spoil any of the fresh pleasures that await. “‘Runaway’ is so good that I don’t want to talk about it here,” Franzen wrote. “Quotation can’t do the book justice, and neither can synopsis. The way to do it justice is to read it.”

But near the end of his 3,000-plus words, Franzen did allow himself a quick nod at the specific thoughts provoked in him by “Runaway.” And they sound an awful lot like some of the thoughts in “Freedom.”

What if the person offended by Grant’s liberality — by his godlessness, his self-indulgence, his vanity, his silliness — weren’t some unhappy stranger but Grant’s own child? A child whose judgment feels like the judgment of a whole culture, a whole country, that has lately taken to embracing absolutes?

What if the great gift you’ve given your child is personal freedom, and what if the child, when she turns 21, uses this gift to turn around and say to you: your freedom makes me sick, and so do you?

Read “Freedom” and you’ll see what I mean. I don’t want to spoil it for you.

(Multimedia bonus! Franzen may hate appearing in videos, but Ron Charles of The Washington Post sure doesn’t. Click here for his hilarious video review of “Freedom” and the surrounding mania.)

Footnote:
The Bookman has just finished reading Freedom, it is a big book running to 562 pages, and I have to say I rate it a truly great novel. I understand all the excitement about it coming from those who read advance copies. It will become one of the great contemporary novels I reckon. An astonishing array of superbly detailed characters, it is no exaggeration to call it an epic of contemporary love and marriage.